HX 

mm 

31 

$B   363   666 

1907 

REPORT 


OF  THB 


SOCIALIST 
LABOR  PARTY 

Of  the  United  States  of  America 

I    '  TO  THE  =5==a=ss=s=s 

INTERNATIONAL 
CONGRESS  held  in 

STUTTGART 

AUG.  18-25,  1907 


REPORT 


Socialist  Labor  Party 


Of  the  United  States  of  America 


TO  THE 


International  Congress 


HELD   IN 


Stuttgart 


August  18-25,  1907 


Si     rf 


To  the  International  Socialist  Congress  of  Stuttgart, 
August  18,  1907. 

Greeting  : — 

This  year's  report  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  to  the  com- 
rades of  the  world,  assembled  in  International  Congress,  is, 
in  the  very  nature  of  things,  so  close  a  continuation  of  the  re- 
port presented  to  the  Congress  of  Amsterdam,  held  three  years 
ago,  that  the  latter  report  would  have  had  to  be  more  than  re- 
ferred to.  It  would  have  had  to  be  quoted  from  extensively. 
Owing,  however,  to  the  accident  that  caused  the  said  report  to 
the  Amsterdam  Congress  to  be  omitted  from  the  volume  pub- 
lished by  the  International  Bureau  containing  the  reports 
presented  by  other  nationalities,  and  having,  moreover,  re- 
ceived from  the  International  Bureau  the  promise  that  the 
omission  would  be  rectified  by  the  speedy  publication  of  the 
said  report,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  of  America  deems  it 
best  to  introduce  its  this  year's  report  with  the  citation  in 
full,  at  this  place,  of  its  report  for  1904. 

There  is  a  further  reason  that  induces  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party  to  reproduce  at  this  place  its  Amsterdam  report.  Too 
busy  at  home,  and  holding  moreover,  that  the  battles  of  the 
American  Movement  will  have  to  be  fought  out  in  America, 
and  not  in  the  columns  of  papers  abroad,  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party  has  abstained  from  entering  into  competition  with  the 
unfriendly  writers  to  European  papers  from  this  country.  The 
consequence  has  been  a  generally  inhospitable  atmosphere  in  the 
European  Socialist  press,  inhospitable  towards  the  Socialist 
Labor  Party,  with  the  further  consequence  that  the  European 
comrades  have  been  left  in  substantial  darkness  upon  the  great 
issue  that  is  being  fought  out  here  in  America.  Whether  the 
Socialist  Labor  Party  is  right  or  wrong,  the  facts  in  the  strug- 


M5i05669 


^le  cia/ijol  Jail  to  be  of  interest  to  the  students  of  the  Inter- 
ia^ional  M^^vement.  Considering  it,  accordingly,  of  importance 
to  the  fulness  of  information  for  the  International  Move- 
ment that  at  least  a  sketch,  but  authoritative  and  furnished 
by  the  S.  L.  P.  itself,  be  available,  the  same  is  hereby  pre- 
sented with  the  report  to  Amsterdam  as  its  basis.  That  report 
was  as  follows : 

To  the  International  Socialist  Congress  of  Amsterdam,  August  14, 

Greeting. — 

To  judge  by  the  frequent  expressions  of  astonishment  from 
European  sources  at  what  they  call  the  backwardness  of  the  Social- 
ist Movement  in  America — a  backwardness  which  they  judge  wholly 
by  votes — the  conclusion  is  warranted  that  essential  features  of 
America  are  not  given  the  weight  that  they  are  entitled  to,  or  are 
wholly  overlooked.  What  these  features  are  the  country's  census 
furnishes  the  material  to  work  upon,  and,  again,  the  immortal  genius 
of  Karl  Marx  supplies  us  with  the  principle  to  guide  us  in  the  selec- 
tion of  the  requisite  categories  of  fact  and  with  the  norm  by  which 
to  gauge  and  analyse  the  material  thus  gathered. 

In  the  monograph  "The  Eighteenth  Brumaire  of  Louis  Bonaparte," 
the  proletarian  insurrection  of  1848  is  used  as  a  text  for  the  fol- 
lowing generalization : 

"Nations  enjoying  an  older  civilization,  having  developed  class  dis- 
tinctions, modern  conditions  of  production,  an  intellectual  conscious- 
ness, wherein  all  traditions  of  old  have  been  dissolved  through  the 
work  of  centuries,  with  such  countries  the  republic  means  only  the 
POLITICAL  REVOLUTIONARY  FORM  OF  BOURGEOIS  SOCIETY 
not  its  CONSERVATIVE  FORM  OF  EXISTENCE,"  and  this  grave 
fact  is  brought  out  forcibly  by  contrasting  such  a  country,  France, 
with  "the  United  States  of  America,  where  true  enough,  the  classes 
already  exist,  but  have  not  yet  acquired  permanent  character,  are 
in  constant  flux  and  reflux,  constantly  changing  their  elements  and 
yielding  them  up  to  one  another;  where  the  modern  means  of  pro- 
duction, instead  of  coinciding  with  a  stagnant  population,  rather 
compensate  for  the  relative  scarcity  of  heads  and  hands;  and  finally, 
where  the  feverishly  youthful  life  of  material  production,  which  has 
to  appropriate  a  new  world  to  itself  has  so  far  left  neither  time  nor 
opportunity  to  abolish  the  illusions  of  old." 

This  was  written  in  1852.  The  giant  strides  since  made  by  Amer- 
ica, her  fabulous  production  of  wealth,  rise  in  manufacture  and  agri- 
culture that  practically  place  her  at  the  head  of  all  other  nations 
in  this  respect,  in,  short,  the  stupendous  stage  of  capitalist  devel- 
opment that  the  country  has  reached,  would  seem  to  remove  the 
contrast.  It  does  not.  These  changes  are  not  enough  to  draw  con- 
clusions as  to  the  stage  of  Socialism  that  may  be  expected.  The 
above  passages  from  Marx  explain  why,  and  they  indicate  what  other 
factors  need  consideration  before  a  bourgeois  republic  has  left  behind 


it  its  "conservative  form  of  existence"  and  entered  upon  that  "po- 
litical revolutionary"  stage  of  its  life,  without  which  a  Socialist 
Movement  can  not  be  expected  to  gain  its  steerage  way.  These 
factors— the  "permanent  character"  and,  therefore,  "intellectual  con- 
sciousness" of  the  classes,  due  to  the  "traditions  of  old  having  been 
dissolved  through  the  work  of  centuries";  the  maturity  of  life  of 
material  production  which,  no  longer  having  "to  appropriate  a  new 
world  to  itself,"  has  the  requisite  time  and  opportunity  "to  abolish 
the  illusions  of  old,"  etc.,— also  require  consideration  and  their 
status  ascertained.  They  are  essential  to  a  final  and  intelligent  con- 
clusion. A  rough  and  rapid  sketch  of  the  facts  that  throw  light  upon 
these  factors  will  clarify  the  situation. 

Since  the  census  facts  of  1850  on  which  Marx  drew,  the  continental 
area  of  the  United  States  has  been  widened  by  not  less  than  1,057,- 
441  square  miles,  or  not  far  from  doubled  what  it  was  in  1850;  as 
a  result,  the  center  of  population,  which  in  1850  was  at  81  deg.  19 
min.  longitude,  or  23  miles  southwest  of  Parkersburg  in  the  present 
State  of  West  Virginia,  has  since  shifted  westward  fully  four  degrees 
of  longitude,  and  now  lies  six  miles  west  of  Columbus,  Ind.;  and  as 
a  further  or  accompanying  result,  the  center  of  manufacture  which 
in  1850  lay  at  77  deg.  25  min.  longitude,  near  Mifflintown,  Pa.,  haa 
since  steadily  traveled  westward  until  it  has  to-day  reached  82  deg. 
12  min.  longitude  near  Mansfield  in  central  Ohio.  Nor  has  the  west- 
ward move  stopped.  One  more  fact  of  importance  along  this  line 
of  inquiry  will  suflace  to  aid  in  forming  an  idea  of  the  meteorologie 
lay  of  social  conditions,  so  to  speak.  While  as  late  as  1880,  thirty 
years  after  Marx'  monograph,  the  census  returned  55,404  water 
wheels  and  no  electric  motors,  ten  years  later  the  water  wheels  had 
fallen  to  39,008  and  the  electric  motors,  starting  then,  have  since 
risen  to  16,923  and  steam  power  in  proportion.  The  situation,  brought 
about  by  these  facts,  may  be  summed  up  by  the  light  of  the  quaint 
report  that  played-out  locomotive  engines,  which  once  did  service  on 
our  city  elevated  roads  and  have  been  discarded  for  electric  motors,, 
now  are  drawing  trains  on  the  railroads  in  China!  Machinery  and 
methods  of  production,  discarded  in  more  advanced  centers,  are  con- 
stantly reappearing  in  less  advanced  localities,  carried  thither  by  the 
flux  of  our  population  westward.  It  goes  without  saying,  that  un- 
der such  conditions,  not  only  is  the  population  still  not  "stagnant", 
not  only  is  there  still  a  "constant  flux  and  reflux",  not  only  is  there 
still  a  "constant  changing"  or  "yielding  up  to  one  another"  by  th« 
classes,  but  that  still  the  odd  phenomenon  is  visible  in  America  of 
families  with  members  in  all  the  classes,  from  the  upper  and  pluto- 
cratic class,  down  through  the  various  gradations  of  the  middle  class, 
down  to  the  "house -and-lot"-owning  wage  slave  in  the  shop,  and 
even  further  down  to  the  wholly  propertiless  proletariat.  It  goes; 
without  saying  that,  under  such  conditions,  there  still  is  in  America 
that  "feverishly  youthful  life  of  material  production"  and  that,  ac- 
cordingly, "the  illusions  of  old"  have  not  yet  had  time  to  be  wiped 
out.  Nor  has  the  immigration  from  Europe  aided  matters.  On  the 
whole  it  has  fallen  in  with  the  stream  as  it  flows.  It  is,  fqr  in- 
stance a  conservative  estimate  that  if  one-half  the  Europeans,  now 
located  in  Greater  New  York  and  who  in  their  old  homes  pronounced 


themselves  Socialists,  remained  so  here,  the  Socialist  organization 
m  the  city  alone  would  have  not  less  than  25,000  enrolled  members. 
Yet  there  is  no  such  membership  or  anything  like  it.  The  natives' 
old  illusions  regarding  material  prospects  draw  the  bulk  of  the  immi- 
grants into  its  vortex  , 

It  goes  without  saying  that  such  conditions  point  to  the  existing 
bourgeois  republic  of  America  as  still  traveling  in  the  orbit  that  Marx 
observed  it  in  during  1852,— at  the  CONSERVATIVE  and  not  yet  the 
POLITICAL  REVOLUTIONARY  form  of  its  existence.  In  short, 
these  conditions  explain  why,  as  yet,  despite  the  stupendous  devel- 
opment of  capitalism  in  the  country,  a  numerically  powerful  Socialist 
Labor  Party,  such  as  such  a  capitalist  development  might  at  first 
blush  mislead  the  casual  observer  into  expecting,  does  not  and  can 
not  yet  exist.  Incidentally,  these  conditions  throw  valuable  light 
upon  the  nature  of  the  "revolutionary  movements"  that  periodically 
spring  up,  whose  discordant  waves  angrily  beat  against  the  Socialist 
Labor  Party,  and  whose  mouthpieces  make  so  much  noise — abroad. 
It  explains,  for  instance,  the  flaring  up  of  the  Single  Tax  Movement 
with  its  300,000  votes  in  the  eighties;  it  explains  the  Populist  Move- 
ment of  a  decade  later,  in  the  nineties,  with  its  1,200,000  votes;  it 
explains  the  latest  of  the  serial  in  direct  line  of  succession,  the  so- 
called  Socialist  or  Social  Democratic  Movement  of  this  decade  with 
its  250,000  votes.  The  first  two  have  already  passed  away,  and  the 
latter--after  adopting  a  ''revisionist"  platform  and  a  trades  union 
resolution,  which  its  own  delegate  to  this  international  congress,  Mr. 
Ernst  Untermann,  admits  in  the  "Neue  Zeit"  of  last  May  28th,  to 
be  "a  covert  endorsement  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  which 
meant  nothing  else  than  a  thrust  at  the  American  Labor  Union, 
which  had  seceded  from  the  former  organization  in  order  to  EMAN- 
CIPATE ITSELF  FROM  THE  DOMINATION  OF  THE  REACTION- 
ISTS AND  HANDMAIDS  OF  THE  CAPITALISTS,"  and  which,  with 
stronger  emphasis,  the  "American  Labor  Union  Journal"  of  May  26th, 
a  hitherto  upholder  of  the  said  so-called  Socialist  party,  deliberately 
brands  as  "COMMITTING  THE  PARTY  TO  SCAB-HERDING"— may 
be  said  to  have  fairly  entered  upon  the  period  of  its  dissolution.  Each 
of  these  movements  successively  set  itself  up  as  the  AMERICAN  So- 
cialist Movement  and  waged  violent  war  against  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party  during  their  flickering  existence,  and  then — dragged  down  and 
throttled  by  the  umbilical  cord  of  the  illusions  that  are  born  from 
the  conditions  in  the  land  sketched  above — after  living  their  noisy 
day,  regularly  and  fatedly  entered  upon  their  period  of  dissolution, — 
never,  however,  without  regularly  leaving  behind  a  more  or  less  solid 
sediment  for  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  whom,  on  the  other  hand,  and 
as  regularly,  during  the  period  of  their  rise  and  growth,  they  cleansed, 
by  drawing  to  themselves,  of  unfit  and  unripe  elements  that,  in  the 
intervals,, had  gravitated  to  the  S.  L.  P.  Thus,  since  its  incipient  vote  of 
13,337  in  1890,  the  first  year  of  its  real  existence,  the  vote  record  of 
the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  during  the  following  presidential  or  na- 
tional   campaign    years,    presents    the    following    table: 

In  1892 21,157  votes; 

In   1896 36,564  votes; 

In    1900 34,191    votes. 

6 


In  1902,  not  a  presidential  year  but  the  nearest  so  far  approach 
thereto  through  State  elections,  the  vote  again  rose  to  53,763. 

If  proper  weight  is  given  to  the  social  conditions  sketched  above, 
another  circumstance  of  much  weight  will  transpire — the  circum- 
stance that  in  America,  the  small  vote  of  a  bona  fide  Socialist  or- 
ganization is  no  criterion  of  its  strength,  of  the  work  it  does,  or  of 
the  Socialist  sentiment  in  the  land,  in  short,  it  is  no  criterion  of  the 
proximity  or  distance  of  the  crowning  event,  of  the  dethronement  of 
the  capitalist  class.  In  America  capitalist  morality  has  invaded  the 
hustings.  The  chicanery  practised  by  the  ruling  class  in  the  factory, 
the  retail  shop  or  their  legalized  gambling  dens,  known  as  "stock 
exchanges",  has  been  introduced  by  them  into  the  electoral  field,  and 
there  sways  supreme.  The  laws  they  have  enacted  to  keep  their 
respective  parties  from  cheating  each  other  would  furnish  a  living 
Montesquieu  with  a  matchless  theme  for  a  matchless  chapter  on  "The 
Spirit  of  Legislation."  Of  course,  the  spirit  of  these  anti-fraud  elec- 
tion laws  directly  warrants  the  contending  parties  of  the  ruling  class 
to  ignore,  aye,  to  violate  them  against  a  bona  fide  party  of  Socialism. 
The  unseating  of  a  Congressman  for  fraudulent  election  practices  is 
not  unknown,  but  it  is  never  practiced  except  by  the  majority  against 
the  minority  party  when  the  former  needs  the  seat.  Such  a  thing 
as  the  unseating  of  a  capitalist  class  member  of  the  Reichstag  for 
fraud  and  ordering  a  new  election  at  which  a  Socialist  candidate  is 
elected,  as  has  happened  in  Germany;  or  the  unseating,  for  similar 
reasons,  of  a  Count  Boni  de  Castellane,  the  sharer,  through  marriage, 
of  our  American  capitalist  Jay  Gould's  millions,  as  recently  hap- 
pened in  France,  strikes  our  American  capitalists,  and  all  others  who 
are  swayed  by  their  modes  of  thought,  as  incomprehensibly  silly. 
They  understand  it  as  little  as  Western  people  understand  the  senti- 
ment of  a  Japanese  soldier  to  rather  die  than  surrender  to  the  Rus- 
sians. What  that  means  to  a  vote  that  really  threatens  the  ruling 
class  is  obvious.  Obvious,  consequently,  is  the  fact  that  the  day 
of  the  Socialist  vote  is  not  yet.  The  capitalist  corruptionists  thwart 
to-day  the  fiat  of  the  ballot.  But  monkeying  with  the  thermometer 
never  yet  affected  the  temperature. 

Accordingly,  the  criterion  of  the  seaworthiness  of  a  Socialist  Move- 
ment in  the  waters  of  American  conditions  is  the  character  of  its 
agitational,  educational,  and  organizing  propaganda;  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  the  literature  it  soaks  the  country  with;  the  strictness  of 
its  self-imposed  discipline;  the  firmness  and  intrepidity  of  its  posture. 
The  Socialist  Labor  Party  has  for  now  four  years  published  the  only 
Socialist  daily  paper  in  the  English-speaking  world — the  Daily  People ; 
for  the  last  thirteen  years  it  has  published  a  weekly— the  Weekly 
People.  These,  besides  the  vast  literature  that  it  publishes  through 
its  press — much  of  it  original,  much  of  it  translations  of  the  best 
that  the  revolutionary  movements  in  other  languages  have  produced 
—are  standard  in  the  English-speaking  movement.  They  breathe  the 
uncompromising  spirit  that  American  conditions  render  imperative  to 
a  Socialist  Movement  unless  it  is  ready  either  to  render  itself  ridicu- 
lous, or  to  betray  the  working  class  with  revisionist  flap-doodleism. 
Accordingly,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  never  withholds  a  blow  at 
Wronc  lest  it  make  an  enemy,  or  lose  a  friend.    It  yields  to  no  lures. 


If,  in  other  countries  conditions  allow,  or,  perchance,  require  a  differ- 
ent course,  not  so  here:  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  of  America  hews 
close  to  the  line.  In  its  war  upon  the  capitalist  class,  the  Party 
allows  not  itself  to  be  used  as  a  prop  for  that  class:  whether  the  cap- 
italist formation  appear  in  the  shape  of  a  Trust,  or  in  that  of  a 
revamp,ed  bourgeois  guild,  sailing  under  the  false  colors  of  "Trades 
Unionism,"  the  Party  ruthlessly  exposes  both— IT  EXPOSES  BOTH 
— even  though  workingmen  may  hold  stock  in  the  former,  the  Trust, 
as  the  so-called  Trades  Union  of  the  Amalgamated  Iron  and  Steel 
Workers  do  in  Carnegie's  United  States  Steel  Corporation;  and  even 
if  it  be  workingmen  who  constitute  the  rank  and  file  of  the  re- 
vamped bourgeois  guilds  sailing  under  the  flag  of  Trades  Unionism, 
and  thereby  keep  the  working  class  divided  by  the  Chinese  Walls  of 
prohibitive  high  dues  and  initiation  fees,  or  other  guild  practices,  as 
many  so-called  Trades  Unions  do.  The  unflinching  attitude  imposed 
upon  a  bona  fide  party  of  Socialism  in  America  is  incomprehensible 
to  the  successive  waves  of  alleged  revolutionary  movements  and 
American  reformers  generally,  who  with  the  tenacity  of  a  disease  turn 
up  and  turn  down  on  the  country's  political  stage.  Being  incomprehen- 
sible to  them,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  is  the  object  of  their  violent 
animosity,  and  is  successively  pronounced  dead  by  them, — on  paper. 
The  Socialists  of  Europe  will  understand  this  phenomenon  when 
they  are  told  that  the  identical  epithets  which  the  Millerand-Jaures 
revisionists  of  France  bestow  upon  the  Parti  Socialiste  de  France 
(U.  S.  R.) — "ill-natured,"  "narrow,"  "intolerant,"  etc.,  etc., — have 
been  and  continue  to  be  bestowed  with  monotonous  regularity  by 
these  American  "revisionists"  upon  the  Socialist  Labor  Party. 

It  is  this  "ill-nature,"  "narrowness,"  "intolerance,"  etc.,  that  is 
urging  on  the  day  of  the  dethronement  of  the  American  capitalist 
class.  At  the  time  of  the  McKinley  assassination  in  1901,  for  in- 
stance, when  the  capitalist  class  tried  to  profit  by  the  event  to  root 
up  all  impulse  towards  its  overthrow,  all  voices  with  one  exception, 
that  had  at  all  seemed  in  opposition  to  class  rule,  were  silenced, 
they  dared  not  utter  themselves.  That  solitary  exception  was  the 
voice  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party.  Scores  of  its  speakers  were 
arrested  and  otherwise  persecuted,  yet  they  held  their  ground  and 
triumphed  over  the  attempt  to  throttle  the  voice  of  the  proletariat. 
Capitalist  development  in  America  is  now  rapidly  overtaking  and 
overcoming  the  obstacles  that  Marx  enumerated  for  the  conservative 
form  of  the  American  bourgeois  republic  to  enter  upon  its  political 
revolutionary  form.  Things  are  ripening  rapidly.  When  the  day  of 
the  vote  shall  have  arrived  for  the  Socialist  Movement  of  America 
that  vote  will  be  counted — or  the  men  whom  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party  is  gathering  and  drilling  WILL  KNOW  THE  REASON  WTIY. 
The  backwardness  of  the  Socialist  Movement  in  America  is  on  the 
surface  only.  Whatever  the  thermometer  of  the  Socialist  vote, 
monkeyed  with  by  capitalist  corruption,  may  register,  the  tem- 
perature is  rising. 

The  S.  L.  P.  platform  demands — and  the  Party's  every  act  is  in 
strict  accordance  with  the  demands— the  unconditional  surrender  of 
the  capitalist  class;  and  the  Party  is  guided  exclusively  by  the 
Polar  Star  of  the  principle  that  the  emancipation  of  the  working 

8 


class  must  be  the  work  of  the  working  class  itself.  The  Party 
takes  nothing  less  because  it  knows  that  anything  less  means  Re- 
visionism. 

[APPENDIX.] 

The  passage  in  the  article  of  the  "American  Labor  Union  Journal", 
quoted  in  the  above  report,  is  worth  reproducing  in  full  in  that  it 
illuminates  a  goodly  portion  of  the  umbilical  cord  that  fatedly  drags 
down  and  throttles  all  these  alleged  "American  Socialist"  movements 
which  periodically  rise  against  the  Socialist  Labor  Party.  This  is  the 
passage: 

"The  men  who  spoke  in  support  of  the  resolution  (the  substitute) 
from  Ben.  Hanford  to  Hilquit  did  not  attempt  to  reply  to  these  ar- 
guments. They  kept  up  a  constant  reiteration  of  the  charges  that 
those  who  opposed  the  resolution  are  opposed  to  trades  unions,  which 
was  a  thousand  miles  from  the  truth,  the  facts  being  that  the  op- 
position was  not  to  trade  union  indorsement,  but  to  the  kind  of 
trades  unionism  it  was  sought  to  indorse.  AS  IT  STANDS  THE 
SOCIALIST  PARTY  IS  COMMITTED  TO  SCAB  HERDING,  organ- 
ization of  dual  unions,  misleading!  of  the  working  class,  the  ex- 
penditure of  union  funds  to  defeat  Socialist  candidates,  the  segrega- 
tion of  the  working  class  into  craft  units  which  are  powerless  to  ac- 
complish anything  AND  IT  HAS  BEEN  COMMITTED  TO  THIS  BE- 
CAUSE A  FEW  AMBITIOUS  EASTERN  COMRADES  WERE  ANX- 
IOUS TO  MAKE  THINGS  PLEASANT  FOR  THEMSELVES  IN 
THE  PURE  AND  SIMPLE  UNIONS." 

And  in  a  subsequent  article,  June  2,  the  same  paper  explains  in 
what  consists  the  *'making  of  things  pleasant  for  themselves"  by 
the  Eastern  members,  the  dominant  element,  in  its  party.    It  says : 

"The  rank  and  file  have  no  axes  to  grind.  They  have  no  induce- 
ment TO  CRAWL  LIKE  WHIPPED  CURS  AT  THE  FOOT  OF  A 
NATIONAL  LABOR  FAKIR.  The  rank  and  file  are  not  SEEKING 
PREFERMENT  in  pure  and  simple  bodies.  They  are  not  SEEKING 
A  DELEGATION  ABROAD,  nor  are  they  after  AN  ORGANIZER'S 
COMMISSION  in  fakirdom.  They  have  no  PAPERS  TO  PEDDLE 
in  fakirdom" — in  short,  the  umbilical  cord  of  the  private  and  guild 
interests  of  that  eastern  and  dominant  element  of  the  so-called  So- 
cialist, alias  Social  Democratic,  party  is  of  a  nature  that  must  in- 
evitably betray  the  working  class,  and,  consequently,  throttle  the 
said  party  as  its  lineal  ancestors  did. 

New  York,  July  15,  1904. 

DANIEL  DE  LEON, 
Delegate  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 

By  order  of  the  National  Executive  Committee,  S.  L.  P. 
HENRY  KUHN, 

National  Secretary. 

It  is  apparent  from  the  above  that  the  field  of  the  American 
Labor  Movement  is  cut  up  into  warring  militant  factions. 
Such  a  sight  suggests  the  idea  of  chaos  and  of  a  waste  of 

9 


energy.  The  election  returns  seem  to  lend  confirmation  to 
the  idea  of  wasted  energy.  A  few  instances  would  seem  strik- 
ing illustrations.  They  are  taken  mainly  from  the  State  of- 
New  York,  where  the  feud  between  the  two  parties  of  Social- 
ism started. 

At  the  gubernatorial  election  in  the  State  of  New  York  in 
1898,  just  before  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  split  and  the 
Socialist  party  was  started  in  this  State,  the  Party  vote  was 
22,301;  last  year,  that  is,  eight  years  later  and  seven  years 
after  the  split,  the  poll  of  the  two  parties  together  amounted 
to  only  26,375,  or  barely  4,000  more.  But  small  as  this  in- 
crease is,  it  is  misleading.  The  real  trend  of  affairs  is  revealed 
by  comparing  the  gubernatorial  poll  of  the  two  parties  for 
1904,  and  for  last  year.  In  1904  the  two  polled  together  45,233 
votes ;  in  1906,  26,375  votes.  A  loss  of  18,858,  towards  which 
loss  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  contributed  4,624,  and  the 
Socialist  party  14,506  votes. 

In  1896,  before  the  split,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  polled 
for  Congress  in  the  Ninth  Congress  District  (a  New  York 
City  district),  4,371  votes;  last  year,  that  is  ten  years  later 
and  seven  after  the  the  split,  and  the  Socialist  Labor  Party 
having  left  the  field  free  to  the  Socialist  party  candidate  for 
Congress  in  that  district,  he  polled  only  3,.586  votes — 785 
less.  The  total  electorate  of  that  particular  district  had,  it 
is  true,  declined  since  1896,  nevertheless  ten  years  agitation, 
extraordinary  opportunities,  but  seven  years  conflict  produced 
an  absolute  loss  of  785  votes. 

A  third  instance  may  be  furnished  by  one  of  the  Assembly 
districts  in  New  York  City.  In  the  district  formerly  known 
as  the  Sixteenth  Assembly  and  now  substantially  embraced  in 
the  Sixth  Assembly,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  polled,  for  the 
Assembly  in  1899,  2,141  votes;  last  year,  that  is,  seven  years 
later  and  since  the  split,  the  combined  votes  of  the  two  parties 
was  only  471  strong.  In  other  words,  there  was  a  heavy  rela- 
tive loss,  and  an  absolute  loss  amounting  to  1,670  votes. 

10 


Looking  over  the  rest  of  the  country,  substantially  the 
same  results  are  obtained^  wherever  such  comparisons  are 
feasible.  The  vote  in  Colorado,  where  Wm.  D.  Haywood, 
now  imprisoned  in  Idaho,  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  So- 
cialist party  ticket  last  year,  and  imparted  to  the  ticket  a 
fictitious  value,  only  accentuates  the  rule  by  the  seeming  ex- 
ception. The  conflict  of  the  two  parties  has  acted  unfavorable 
upon  their  total  poll.  The  Socialist  Party,  which  ran  up,  two 
years  ago,  to  about  400,000  has  since  then  steadily  receded 
more  or  less  markedly  everywhere;  about  the  same  experience 
being  that  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  with  its  34,172  poll 
of  1904. 

Such  facts  and  figures  would  seem  to  furnish  ocular 
proof  of  the  belief  that  the  existing  political  conflict  is  but  a 
wasteful,  if  not  a  barren,  consumer  of  Socialist  energy.  For 
all  that  the  belief  is  erroneous.  Out  of  this  very  conflict  the 
foundation  is  rising  for  a  mighty  Socialist  Movement — econ- 
omic as  well  as  political.  While  personal  animosities  may  be 
developed  and  seem  to  play  a  leading  role,  they  are  not  a 
cause.  The  cause  is  a  conflict  of  two  opposing  principles. 
For  the  ascertaining  of  the  correct  one  all  sacrifice  of  vote  and 
of  effort  we  hold  is  well  spent. 

The  two  great  principles  that  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  strug- 
gle within  the  Socialist  and  Labor  Movement  in  America  are 
these : 

One  is  that  the  political  movement  of  Socialism  can  not  if 
it  would,  and  should  not,  if  it  could,  ignore  the  economic ;  and 
that  no  healthy  or  successful  political  movement  of  Socialism 
is  possible  in  this  utterly  capitalist  nation,  unless  it  is  founded, 
banked  and  based  upon  a  healthy  economic  or  union  move- 
ment. This  principle,  in  short,  holds  that  in  America  a  bona 
fide  political  movement  of  Socialism  can  only  be  the  reflex 
of  an  equally  bona  fide,  that  is,  revolutionary  economic  move- 
ment. 

The  other  principle  is  that  the  political  movement  of  So- 
il 


cialism  should  not,  if  it  could,  and  could  not  if  it  would, 
have  anything  to  do  with  the  economic  movement.  It  preaches 
"Neutrality/^  towards  the  Unions,  and  considers  Unionism 
a  transitory  manifestation. 

All  the  dissensions,  occasionally  even  bloody,  in  the  Socialist 
and  Labor  Movement  in  America,  are  traceable  to  the  clash  of 
these  two  conflicting  principles.  The  Socialist  Labor  Party 
— fathoming  the  profundity  of  the  Marxian  thought  that 
^^only  the  Trades  Union  can  give  birth  to  a  true  political  party 
of  Labor,^^  and  recognizing,  as  a  consequence,  the  economic 
organization  as  the  embryo  of  future  society,  therefore,  the 
Might  behind  the  Eight  proclaimed  by  the  ballot — holds  to 
the  former  principle.  As  a  consequence  the  endeavor  of  this 
Party  has  been  unflagging  for  the  foundation  of  bona  fide 
Unionism  in  the  land. 

The  Trades  Union  field  in  America,  was  found  by  the  polit- 
ical movement  of  Socialism  to  be  pre-empted  by  what  is  called 
craft  or  pure  and  simple  Unionism.  This  system  of  Unionism 
organizes  the  crafts,  not  simply  as  units,  but  as  autonomous 
and  sovereign  bodies.  The  fundamental  error  of  this  system 
of  economic  organization  was  soon  found  to  be  desirable  by 
the  capitalist  class.  The  craft  union  rendered  all  economic 
movement  fruitless.  If,  indeed,  the  wages  in  these  Unions 
were  ever  found  higher  than  among  the  unorganized,  the  price 
that  the  Union  paid  for  such  higher  wages  was  to  divide  the 
working  class  hopelessly.  In  the  first  place,  the  craft  Union 
deliberately  excluded  the  majority  of  the  members  of  the  trade 
from  participation  through  apprenticeship  regulations,  high 
dues,  high  initiation  fees  and  other  devices.  In  the  second 
place,  each  of  these  craft  Unions,  in  turn,  could  earn  its 
Judas  pence  only  by  allying  itself  with  the  employer  each  time 
that  some  other  craft  was  at  war  with  the  employing  class. 
It  is  superfluous  to  enumerate  the  long  catalogue  of  deliberate 
acts  of  treason  to  the  working  class  at  home  and  abroad,  and 
the  shocking  corruption  that  such  style  of  "Unionism"  was 

12 


bound  to  breed.  Suffice  it  to  say,  as  proof,  that  these  craft 
Unions  are  found  amalgamated  with  an  organization  of  cap- 
italists, known  as  the  "Civic  Federation/^  the  purpose  of  which 
is  to  establish  "harmonious  relations  between  Labor  and  Cap- 
ital/' These  craft  Unions  are  mainly  organized  in  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor. 

A  political  movement  of  Labor — and  what  else  is  a  polit- 
ical party  of  Socialism  but  a  political  movement  of  Labor? — 
can  recruit  its  main  forces  only  from  the  camp  of  the  work- 
ing class.  It  is  an  inevitable  consequence  that  the  feuds  bred 
by  craft  or  pure  and  simple  Unionism,  in  the  Labor  Move- 
ment had  to  be  transferred  to  the  political  movement.  Under 
such  circumstances  not  only  was  the  working  class  split  polit- 
ically among  the  several  political  parties  of  capitalism,  but 
its  divisions  were  finally  reflected  into  two  hostile  parties  of 
Socialism — one,  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  though  recognizing 
the  different  spheres  of  the  political  and  the  economic  wings 
of  the  movement,  yet  closely  and  avowedly  linked  with  the 
economic ;  the  other,  the  Socialist  party,  proclaiming  "Neu- 
trality" in  Unionism,  as  a  consequence  of  the  theory  regard- 
ing the  transitoriness  of  the  Union. 

The  feature  of  the  course  of  events,  or  what  may  be  called 
the  fruit  of  this  conflict,  in  the  Socialist  and  the  Labor  field 
of  America  since  the  Amsterdam  Congress  lies  in  two  preg- 
nant happenings. 

The  first  was  the  springing  up  in  1905  of  the  "Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World,"  a  revolutionary  economic  organiza- 
tion that  planted  itself  upon  the  class  struggle,  and,  having 
taken  that  advanced  point,  until  then  held  only  by  the  Social- 
ist Trade  and  Labor  Alliance,  went  further  along  the  evolu- 
tionary line,  rejects  the  craft  system  of  organization,  and  set 
up  the  INDUSTRIAL  systcm.  This  move  was  a  loud  proclama- 
tion of  the  permanent  mission  of  Unionism.  It  laid  the  foun- 
dation for  the  constituent  bodies  in  the  government  of  the 
Socialist  Kepublic;  it  was  the  first  practical  preparation  in 

13 


America  for  the  Eevolution  that  will  lead  society  out  of  the 
economic  storm  of  Capitalism  into  the  haven  of  the  Co-opera- 
tive Commonwealth. 

The  second  happening  was  the  meeting  of  the  New  Jer- 
sey Unity  Conference,  held  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey  by  an 
equal  number  of  representatives  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party 
and  the  Socialist  Party  of  that  State,  during  the  months  of 
December,  1905,  January,  February  and  March,  1906.  The 
resolution  of  the  Amsterdam  Congress,  calling  upon  the  rival 
political  parties,  in  whatever  country  such  were  found,  to  unite 
and  present  one  party  of  Socialism  against  the  parties  of  cap- 
italism, contributed  its  share  to  this  event.  But  the  current 
in  that  direction  had  begun  to  set  in  before  then.  It  is  fore- 
shadowed, if  not  indicated,  by  the  passages  in  the  Amsterdam 
report  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  reproduced  herein  in  fuil, 
containing  literal  quotations  from  Labor  publications  that  had 
thitherto  fraternized  with  the  Socialist  party.  The  theory 
of  "Neutrality"  in  Unionism  had  exhibited  itself  in  practice 
as  an  error  doomed  to  land  into  the  perversest  of  "Partisan- 
ship" in  Unionism.  During  the  preceding  six  years — from 
the  time  that  it  was  raised  to  a  tenet  of  political  Socialism  as 
against  the  tenet  held  by  the  Socialist  Labor  Party — "Neu- 
trality" had  approved  itself  in  practice,  as  it  never  could 
otherwise  have  approved  itself,  a  mask  for  reactionary  Union- 
ism, and  a  badge  for  that  mischievous  politicianism  that  is 
mainly  responsible  for  the  so-called  Anarchists,  who,  in  fact, 
are  advocates  of  physical  force  only.  Indignant  at  the  mis- 
conduct of  the  politicianism  that  attends  whatever  Socialism 
is  not  planted  on  the  economic  organization  of  Labor,  men 
blinded  with  anger  wash  out  the  bath  with  the  baby — reject 
political  agitation  itself  while  rejecting  its  abuse.  The  shatter- 
ing of  the  theory  of  "Neutrality"  opened  the  perspective  for 
the  full  appreciation  of  the  historic  mission  of  Unionism,  ac- 
cordingly it  led  straight  to  the  shattering  also  of  the  compan- 
ion piece  of  "Neutrality" — the  theory  regarding  the  "transi- 

14 


toriness  of  Unionism."  Before  the  Unity  resolution  of  Am- 
sterdam, even  before  the  assembling  of  the  Chicago  Conven- 
tion, which  reared  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  some 
of  the  most  valuable  elements  in  the  Socialist  party  had  be- 
gun to  draw  nearer  to  the  Socialist  Labor  Party.  The  Am- 
sterdam Unity  resolution,  closely  followed  by  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  broke  the  ice. 
The  immediate  result  was  an  invitation,  issued  by  the  1905 
annual  convention  of  the  Socialist  party  of  New  Jersey  to 
the  Socialist  Labor  Party  of  the  same  State  to  consider  the 
basis  for  political  unity  in  America.  The  deliberations  of 
the  New  Jersey  Unity  Conference,  which  have  been  issued 
in  book  form  by  the  Conference,  are  a  landmark  in  the  Amer- 
ican movement.  The  manifesto  issued  by  the  Conference  to 
their  New  Jersey  constituents  with  virtual  unanimity — it 
received  the  vote  of  all  the  twelve  Socialist  Labor  Party  dele* 
gates,  and  of  all  the  Socialist  party  delegates,  except  one — >. 
contains  the  following  passage : 

"The  Conference  holds  .  .  .  that  without  the  polit- 
ical movement  is  backed  by  a  class-conscious,  that  is,  a  prop- 
erly constructed  economic  organization,  ready  to  take  and  hold 
and  conduct  the  productive  powers  of  the  land,  and  thereby 
ready  and  able  to  enforce,  if  need  be,  and  when  need  be,  the 
fiat  of  the  Socialist  ballot  of  the  working  class — that  without 
such  a  body  in  existence,  the  Socialist  political  movement  will 
be  but  a  flash  in  the  pan,  successful  at  best,  in  affording  polit- 
ical preferment  to  scheming  intellectuals,  and  thereby  power- 
ful only  to  attract  such  elements.  On  this  specific  head  the^ 
Conference  moreover  holds,  that  a  political  party  of  Socialism 
which  marches  to  the  polls  unarmed  by  such  a  properly  con- 
structed economic  organization,  but  invites  a  catastrophe  over 
the  land  in  the  measure  that  it  strains  for  political  success, 
and  in  the  measure  that  it  achieves  it.  It  must  be  an  obvious 
fact  to  all  serious  observers  of  the  times,  that  the  day  of  the 
political  success  of  such  a  party  in  America,  would  be  the  day 

IS 


of  its  defeat,  immediately  followed  by  an  industrial  and  finan- 
cial crisis,  from  which  none  would  suffer  more  than  the  work- 
ing class  itself. 

"The  Conference  holds  that  for  the  Socialist  political  move- 
ment to  favor  A.  F.  of  L.  craft  Unionism  is  to  bluntly  deny 
Socialist  principles  and  aims,  for  no  matter  how  vigorously 
the  A.  F.  of  L.  may  cry  'Organize!  Organize!'  in  practice 
it  seeks  to  keep  the  unorganized,  the  overwhelming  majority 
of  the  working  class,  out  of  the  organization.  The  facts  can 
^easily  be  proved  to  a  candid  world.  High  initiation  fees,  limi- 
tation of  apprentices,  cornering  the  jobs  for  the  few  whom 
they  admit  into  the  organization,  are  but  a  few  of  the  meth- 
ods used  to  discourage  organization,  which  results,  not  only  in 
lack  of  organization,  but  by  the  craft  form  of  what  organ- 
ization they  do  have,  they  isolate  the  workers  into  groups, 
which  left  to  fight  for  themselves  in  time  of  conflict,  become 
the  easy  prey  of  the  capitalists.  On  the  other  hand,  the  readi- 
ness with  which  certain  portions  of  the  exploiting  class  force 
their  victims  to  join  the  A.  F.  of  L.  is  sufficient  condemnation 
of  the  organization. 

"By  its  own  declarations  and  acts,  the  A.  F.  of  L.  shows  that 
it  accepts  wage  slavery  as  a  finality;  and,  holding  that  there 
is  identity  of  interest  between  employer  and  employe,  the 
A.  F.  of  L.  follows  it  out  by  gladly  accepting  the  vice-presi- 
dency of  the  Belmont  Civic  Federation  for  its  president, 
Gompers,  thus  allying  itself  with  an  organization  fathered 
by  the  capitalist  class  for  the  purpose  of  blurring  the  class 
struggle,  and  for  prolonging  the  present  system  which  is 
cornered  on  the  exploitation  of  labor. 

"For  these  reasons  the  Conference  concludes  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  a  political  party  of  Socialism  to  promote  the  organ- 
ization of  a  properly  constructed  Union,  both  by  elucidating 
the  virtues  of  such  a  Union,  and  by  exposing  the  vices  of  craft 
Unionism.  Consequently,  and  as  a  closing  conclusion  on  this 
"head,  it  rejects  as  impracticable,  vicious,  and  productive  only 

i6 


of  corruption,  the  theory  of  neutrality  on  the  economic  field.. 
The  Conference,  true  to  these  vie^s  condemns  the  A.  F.  of  L. 
as  an  obstacle  to  the  emancipation  of  the  working  class. 

"Holding  that  the  political  power  flows  from  and  is  a  re- 
sult of  economic  power,  and  that  the  capitalist  is  entrenched 
in  the  Government  as  the  result  of  his  industrial  power,  the 
Conference  commends  as  useful  to  the  emancipation  of  the 
working  class,  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World,  which, 
instead  of  running  away  from  the  class  struggle,  bases  itself 
squarely  upon  it,  and  boldly  and  correctly  sets  out  the  Social- 
ist principle  that  the  working  class  and  the  employing  class 
have  nothing  in  common,  and  that  'the  working  class  must 
come  together  on  the  political  as  well  as  on  the  industrial 
field,  to  take  and  hold  that  which  they  produce  by  their 
labor.'  '' 

Submitted  by  the  representatives  of  the  two  parties  to  a 
referendum  vote  of  their  respective  New  Jersey  constituencies, 
the  manifesto  was  unanimously  approved  by  the  New  Jersey 
membership  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  but  was  rejected 
by  a  majority  of  the  Socialist  party  membership  of  the  State.. 
The  matter,  however,  did  not  end  there;  nor  could  it.  The 
work  done  by  the  New  Jersey  Conference  has  since  slowly  per- 
colated beyond  the  boundaries  of  New  Jersey  and  reached 
large  numbers  of  the  members  of  the  Socialist  party  in  other 
States.  The  result  has  been  a  variety  of  propositions,  the  most 
pointed  of  which  is  that  which  came  last  September  from  the 
New  Orleans,  La.,  local  of  the  Socialist  party.  The  New 
Orleans  proposition  calls  upon  the  National  Executive  of  the 
Socialist  party  to  submit  to  a  referendum  of  the  national 
membership  the  question  of  inviting  the  Socialist  Labor  Party 
to  elect  a  national  committee  for  the  purpose  of  conferring 
with  a  similar  national  committee  of  the  Socialist  party  look- 
ing to  the  national  unity  of  the  two  parties.  The  New  Or- 
leans proposed  resolution  has  received  considerable  support 
from  the  Socialist  party  organizations  in  other  cities,  and  may- 

17 


possibly  reach  in  the  course  of  the  year  the  stage  of  submis- 
sion to  a  general  vote  of  that  party.  In  the  meantime,  how- 
ever, many  of  the  best  members  and  groups  of  members  in 
the  Socialist  party,  too  impatient  to  await  the  slow  process 
of  the  referendum,  and  considering  their  party  hopelessly 
wedded  to  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  are  daily  withdrawing  from  the 
Socialist  party,  joining  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  and  issuing 
printed  statements  of  their  reasons  for  so  doing.  This  has 
happened  notedly  in  Minnesota,  Ohio  and  the  State  of  Wash- 
ington, besides  a  large  number  of  cities  throughout  the  land. 
While,  however  slowly,  this  development  is  steadily  and 
soundly  proceeding  within  the  militant  field,  outside  of  that 
field  American  capitalism  is  doing  its  work  to  perfection.  It 
is  creating  the  conditions  that  breed  the  atmosphere  which 
ripens  the  revolutionary  fruit.  What  those  conditions  and 
that  atmosphere  are  may  be  gathered  from  two  utterances — 
both  taken  hot  from  the  capitalist  oven.  Addressing  a  ban- 
quet of  capitalists  last  December,  Leslie  M.  Shaw,  at  the 
time  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  President  Roosevelt's 
<3abinet,  said :  "Fall  upon  your  knees  and  pray  to  God  to  save 
us  from  our  prosperity."  About  a  month  later,  on  last  De- 
cember 28,  the  New  York  "Sun,"  an  alert  organ  of  the  cap- 
italist class  ever  ready  to  recommend  the  most  ferocious  atroc- 
ities against  workingmen  on  strike,  struck  this  note  of  warn- 
ing: "We  have  had  such  years  of  prosperity  and  progress  as 
were  never  known  in  the  history  of  the  nation,"  and  yet  "there 
is  a  greater  unrest  and  a  greater  uneasiness  in  the  air  than 
there  was  before  Sumter  was  fired  on" — the  firing  on  Sumter 
ushered  in  the  Civil  War. 

II  est  un  age  dans  la  vie 
Ou  chaque  reve  doit  finir. 
Un  age  ou  Tame  recueillie 
A  besoin  de  se  souvenir. 

The  dream  that  our  people  have  so  long  been  fondled  in, 

i8 


concerning  the  delightfulness  and  the  stability  of  capitalist 
institutions  in  America,  is  fast  evaporating;  the  dream  con- 
cerning the  efficacy  of  pure  and  simple  Unionism,  that  is,  of 
a  Unionism  grounded  on  "fraternal  relations  between  Capital 
and  Labor,''  together  with  the  companion  dream  of  pure  and 
simple  political  Socialism,  that  is,  the  Socialism  that  marches 
to  the  ballot  box  unequipped  with  the  Might  of  the  Industrial 
organization  of  the  Working  Class, — this  double  dream  also 
is  lifting  from  the  public  mind.  Coupled  to  this  come  the 
recollections  of  bitter  and  hitherto  not  understood  experiences 
crowding  upon  the  mind.  For  these  combined  reasons  the 
Socialist  Labor  Party  considers  of  supreme  importance  the 
strictest  present  adherence  to  the  sociologic  chart  outlined  by 
the  combined  philosophy  of  Marx  and  Morgan.  Hence,  also 
the  attitude  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  towards  the  Paris, 
or  Kautsky  resolution  of  1900.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the 
resolution,  offered  upon  this  head  by  Daniel  De  Leon,  the 
delegate  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  at  the  Amsterdam  Con- 
gress, also  happens  to  have  been  left  out  of  the  official  records 
of  the  Congress,  and  as  a  means  of  further  elucidating  the  po- 
sition taken  by  the  Socialist  Labor  Party,  both  at  home  and 
towards  the  International  Movement,  the  said  Socialist  Labor 
Party  resolution,  is  here  produced  in  full: 

"Whereas,  The  struggle  between  the  working  class  and  the 
capitalist  class  is  a  continuous  and  irrepressible  conflict,  a 
conflict  that  tends  every  day  rather  to  be  intensified  than  to 
be  softened; 

''Whereas,  The  existing  governments  are  committees  of  the 
ruling  class,  intended  to  safeguard  the  yoke  of  capitalist  ex- 
ploitation upon  the  neck  of  the  working  class; 

"Whereas,  At  the  last  International  Congress,  held  in  Paris 
inlOOO,  a  resolution,  generally  known  as  the  Kautsky  resolu- 
tion, was  adopted,  the  closing  clauses  of  which  contemplate 
the  emergency  of  the  working  class  accepting  office  at  the 
hands  of  such  capitalist  governments,  and  also,  especially, 

19 


presupposes  the  possibility  of  impartiality  on  the  part 

OF  THE  RULING   CLASS   GOVERNMENTS   IN   THE   CONFLICTS  BE- 
TWEEN THE  WORKING  CLASS  AND  THE  CAPITALIST  CLASS  ;  and 

"Whereas,  The  said  clauses — applicable  perhaps,  in  coun- 
tries not  yet  wholly  freed  from  feudal  institutions; — were 
adopted  under  conditions  both  in  France  and  in  the  Paris 
Congress  itself,  that  justify  erroneous  conclusions  on  the  na- 
ture, of  the  class  struggle,  the  character  of  capitalist  govern- 
ments and  the  tactics  that  are  imperative  upon  the  proletariat 
in  the  pursuit  of  its  campaign  to  overthrow  the  capitalist  sys- 
tem in  countries,  which  like  the  United  States  of  America, 
have  wholly  wiped  out  feudal  institutions ;  therefore,  be  it 

"Resolved,  First,  That  the  said  Kautsky  resolution  be  and 
the  same  is  hereby  repealed  as  a  principle  of  general  Socialist 
tactics ; 

"Second,  That  in  fully  developed  capitalist  countries  like 
America,  the  working  class  can  not,  without  betrayal  of  the 
cause  of  the  proletariat,  fill  any  political  office  other  than 
such  as  they  conquer  for  and  by  themselves/' 

Such — as  above  roughly  outlined — is  the  lay  of  the  land  in 
general,  and  in  particular,  here  in  America.  Different  diag- 
noses may  be  and  still  are  made  from  different  quarters,  re- 
sulting in  different  methods.  The  methods  dictated  by  diag- 
noses different  from  the  diagnosis  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party 
have  each  in  turn,  however  promiseful  at  the  start,  shrivelled 
and  proved  ineffective.  Ever  ready  to  overhaul  and  re-exam- 
ine its  tenets,  and  ever  overhauling  and  re-examining  them, 
the  Socialist  Labor  Party  pursues  its  undeterred  career  with 
an  eye  single  upon  the  goal — the  emancipation  of  the  pro- 
letariat.   While  it  thus  labors — 


20 


The  dreamers  who  gaze  while  we  battle  the  wave§ 

May  see  us  in  sunshine  or  shade; 
Yet  true  to  our  course,  though  our  shadow  grow  dark 

We'll  trim  our  broad  sail  as  before. 
And  stand  by  the  rudder  that  governs  the  bark. 

Nor  a^k  how  we  look  from  the  shore! 


Representative  of  the  Socialist  Labor  Party  of  America  on 
the  International  Socialist  Bureau. 

Daniel  De  Leon. 

New  York,  January,  1907. 

By  order  of  the  National  Committee  of  the  Socialist  Labor 
Party. 

Frank  Bohn, 
Nat'l  Sec'y. 


21 


•^ 


14  DAY  USE 

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